


step into the ring for you

by mercutioes



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (it's dimitri), Bondage, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Impact Play, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Safeword Use, Threesome - M/M/M, Trans Male Character, Under-negotiated Kink, Voyeurism, What Are Boundaries And What Do You Mean I'm Crossing Them: the Felix Fraldarius Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 11:55:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21208115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercutioes/pseuds/mercutioes
Summary: sylvain walks in on something he really shouldn't have.  the consequences are unexpected for everyone involved.





	step into the ring for you

**Author's Note:**

> title from "i'm your man" by leonard cohen
> 
> content warnings for: under-negotiated kink, kink used as a coping mechanism in some dubiously-healthy/safe ways, and safeword use during the scene
> 
> "write something fun and sexy about dimitri in a collar," i said to myself. "it'll be short and inconsequential," i said. Well,

Sylvain knows a few things.

Sylvain knows that one day, in all likelihood, given his disposition, he’ll find someone to fall madly in love with and settle down and never look back.

He knows that Felix loves Dimitri with a depth that he’d never thought possible outside of stories, that Felix would die for him in an instant and wouldn’t think twice.

He knows that Felix melts so easily under him with sweet words and praise and a kiss to the right part of his throat, with fingers in him and weight pinning his wrists. That he blushes, grappling with embarrassment at his own submission and Sylvain does his best to kiss away Felix’s instinct to curl into himself and hide his face.

He knows that he’s lucky to have even that much of Felix’s trust.

——

Sylvain’s got a message from the gatekeeper for Felix and some time to kill, so he takes the long route up the parapets of Castle Blaiddyd. It’s a luxury when Sylvain gets to stay in the capital for a month or two, so he enjoys the view while he can. The right hand of the King isn’t on the training grounds or in his own quarters, so the next logical step is to check the royal suite.

Later, he’ll damn his own rude habit of entering _ before _ he knocks. The guard had given him a wary look before Sylvain had insisted that this was incredibly important business, and if that wasn’t enough to ward him off, the fact that the two weren’t in the main room and instead in the actual _ bedroom _ should have made him turn around.

Instead, Sylvain doesn’t leave and he doesn’t knock. He opens the bedroom door and meets with a sight that drops the cheerful expression from his face in an instant.

“Shit!”

“Gautier.”

Felix looks as frightening as he does when he has Sylvain at the end of a sword, eyes sharp as his blade and twice as dangerous.

“I— I should go!”

“Wait.”

Against his will, Sylvain’s eyes flit back to Felix, down his familiar body and to Dimitri.

Dimitri.... _ Oh. Fuck. _

Dimitri sits, naked and quiescent, on a leash at Felix’s feet.

“Felix, _ what— _”

“Be quiet,” Felix snaps, and something in his voice makes Sylvain do just that, despite the fact that every other time Felix has told him to shut up, it makes Sylvain do the opposite. Felix ignores him, tilting Dimitri’s chin up. He whispers something into the King’s ear, too low for Sylvain to hear, before pulling back and asking louder:

“Should I send him away?”

It takes Dimitri a moment that stretches into eternity to answer.

“I — I don’t know.”

Felix closes his eyes briefly. When he re-opens them, his gaze pins Sylvain to the spot.

“If you stay, it’s just to watch, and nothing leaves this room or I cut your fucking heart out.” Sylvain swallows, hard. For once, it doesn’t feel like an empty threat. “Do you still want to stay?” Sylvain pushes down a thousand burning questions. He shouldn’t want to, he should walk away now and pretend that everything is normal but. But. The way Dimitri’s shoulders fall.

“Yeah, uh, yes,” Sylvain manages, tongue thick in his mouth.

“He’s going to watch, Dima. Tell me now if you want him gone.”

Dimitri shakes his head, as if even that takes immense effort. Felix nods curtly.

“That’s settled, then. Sylvain, find a chair, will you? You look stupid standing around like that.”

Sylvain swallows and scrambles to do so, face heating and mind racing. As he sits, part of him wants to crack a joke to break the tension, but even he knows that if he tries it he’ll be thrown out before he gets the chance to see anything.

Felix winds his fingers into Dimitri’s hair — down for now, like he kept it during the war, instead of tied up — and leans forward in his own chair, eyes fixed on Sylvain.

“We have rules,” he says. “The beast is going to tell you what they are.” Felix gives Dimitri’s head a little shake, twisting until Dimitri moves to look at Sylvain. His eye is hazy.

“I — I take what Felix gives me,” he says, already-deep voice rough in a way that sends a shudder through Sylvain. “I do what he says.” He takes a ragged breath. “When I’m here, I’m nothing.”

It’s like ice water’s been poured on Sylvain’s lap. He’s halfway out of his seat, a protest on his lips — _ what the fuck, Felix — _ but Felix stops him with a look. There’s genuine ire in his amber eyes, though he’s remarkably calm for, well, _ him_.

“They’re our rules,” Felix says. “Take them or leave, but you don’t get to decide what he needs.”

Sylvain sits back down, slowly, wary. He can’t imagine… but, he supposes, that’s why it’s Felix with Dimitri at his feet and not anyone else.

“Are those all the rules?” Sylvain asks, voice barely more than a whisper.

“He has a word if it gets too much,” Felix replies, insistent, like he’s trying to impress upon Sylvain that his cruelty isn’t malice. Sylvain’s not stupid or naive, he understands in theory — he nods. It seems to satisfy Felix for now as he turns his attention back to Dimitri.

“Otherwise,” he continues coldly, planting his boot square over Dimitri’s heart while pulling on the leash, catching him in a push-pull that would bruise if it weren’t the King, “he’s less than a beast.”

Dimitri’s lungs empty all at once, head hanging and hair falling in his face, hands clenched at his sides. Felix laughs a little under his breath, suddenly letting the leash go slack and pushing with his foot so Dimitri goes sprawling onto the rug.

“We’ve been doing this for years,” Felix says, ostensibly to Sylvain, and Sylvain feels himself straighten up in his chair at being acknowledged. “Back during the war, everyone was treating him so gently, but I was the only one who knew what he _ really _needed.”

“Wh… what did he need?” Sylvain asks, risking a question — Felix was addressing him after all, and he was never told not to speak.

Dimitri makes a valiant effort to sit up, but Felix plants his boot on his collarbone, pinning him to the floor.

“Answer him,” Felix orders. Dimitri only growls, struggling under the weight of Felix’s boot. Like it’s nothing, Felix leans down and slaps him across his face with a sound that rings through the bedroom. Unthinking, Sylvain puts a hand to his own cheek, feels a throb go through his whole body at the way Dimitri lets out a small groan.

“I needed to— to be taken down.”

Those sound like Felix’s words, not Dimitri’s. Felix pets over Dimitri’s hair in a mockery of a reward, a spot of tenderness while his heel digs into Dimitri’s scarred, pale skin.

“Just like a beast,” Felix says, his cadence that of a mantra often repeated. His smile is a vicious slash across his face as he steps off Dimitri, sinking to straddle his broad chest instead. “Well. What should we show him?” He takes Dimitri’s jaw in hand, holding so tight when Dimitri tries to wrench his face away that his fingernails leave angry crescent marks.

“Felix—” Sylvain tries again, something in his gut rebelling against the sight before him even as his cock throbs between his legs. He gets only a glare for his outburst. Cowed into silence again, Sylvain bites his lip hard, runs his tongue over the imprints of his teeth.

“I could keep you down here and let you rut off against my boot,” Felix spits, before taking a moment to consider, “or, since we have a guest, I could get some use out of you and serve tea on your back.”

Sylvain can only imagine how a teapot would burn against bare skin and, from the ragged noise Dimitri makes, he’s imagining it, too. Felix laughs.

“No,” he continues, shaking Dimitri’s face, leaning closer, “your filth would get the porcelain dirty.”

At that, Dimitri bucks up, shoving Felix off his chest and panting hard like a cornered animal. Sylvain can’t breathe, muscles tensing like his body wants to intervene, wants to keep everyone safe, though he’s not sure who’s the more dangerous — Dimitri looking feral and wounded or Felix with a sharp, calculating expression that puts Sylvain in mind of a hawk deciding how best to dismember its prey.

Felix stands and Sylvain realizes he still has the leash in hand. Dimitri seems to realize at the same time, eye widening in the split second before Felix forces him up, up, to his knees and then to his feet, scrambling to keep his balance.

“Looks like you’ve made your decision,” Felix hisses, real anger like sputtering embers in his voice. “Hands behind your back.”

Dimitri growls, fists clenched and deliberately still at his sides. He stares Felix down.

A long moment passes, two, three. Sylvain can’t force air into his lungs.

Felix grits out a laugh.

“Of _ course _you’d be difficult with an audience,” he says, and before Sylvain can process what’s happening, Felix gathers lightning in his palm and pushes it into the skin just above the vee of Dimitri’s hips, just above where his cock peeks out among the curls of coarse blond hair.

Sylvain actually makes it out of his seat this time, reaching for a lance that isn’t there, his own muttered curse overtaken by Dimitri’s pained cry. Is Felix _ stupid _ ? That could fucking _ kill _him if he isn’t careful and Sylvain would be responsible for sitting in the room worrying more about his hard cock than protecting the Goddess-damned King and —

And Dimitri, panting hard, head hanging, puts his hands behind his back.

Felix huffs in satisfaction, stepping around Dimitri. He brings the leash with him, pulling it hard so the collar rotates on Dimitri’s neck in a way that must chafe. As Sylvain tentatively sits, his jaw clenches around an embarrassing sound at the sight of Felix forcing Dimitri’s forearms in line, wrapping the loose end of the leash around and around them before tying it off. If he relaxes his arms, it’ll choke him, Sylvain realizes with dawning horror and arousal both, imagining the strain it must put on Dimitri’s shoulders to keep them in position.

“Now he looks like a proper beast, doesn’t he?” Felix comments, glancing at Sylvain for the first time in a while. It makes Sylvain squirm in his seat like a child in trouble, asked a question with no right answer. He decides that a nod is safe, rewarded by a quirk of Felix’s lips in his direction.

“He’ll sound like a beast, too, once I’m through with him.” Felix runs his hand over Dimitri’s hair, over his broad shoulder made taut with strain. “That’s it, stay right there.”

Felix leaves Dimitri standing in the center of the room, heading to the chest of drawers on the wall to rummage for something. It leaves Sylvain room to look his fill over Dimitri, lingering at the place where Felix had pushed lightning under his skin. The mark it left is no more damning than a sparring bruise, a blow from a training lance over armor. Sylvain’s eyes wander — Dimitri flushes with his whole body, complexion giving way to a splotchy redness over his chest and stomach, his cheeks, neck, even his shoulders dusted with pink. His eye is hazy, stuck on the middle distance, refusing to meet Sylvain’s gaze.

Sylvain swallows to see that Dimitri’s swollen and red — probably has been since he barged in, the way he’s wet all down his thighs. Dimitri barely seems to notice it, too caught up in maintaining the delicate balance between his arms and his neck, try to both relieve his shoulders and keep his airway clear. Sylvain’s nothing if not perceptive with things like this — he sees that every time Dimitri slips and chokes, he presses his thighs together, searching for stimulation. _ No wonder they do this_, he thinks. It makes him want to laugh, remembering all the times Felix threatened to strangle them both. _ No wonder_.

Felix returns with — with a bundle of birch sticks, tied together at the end. They’ve been smoothed out and polished, no jumble of exposed twigs like the hastily-made birchers Sylvain remembers dreading when he was a boy. His breath catches the same time as Dimitri’s when he sees it, audible in the quiet of the room.

“Sylvain,” Felix says, and when it takes a moment, “_Sylvain. _ Come here.” Sylvain stands tentatively, feeling a bit like he’s in trouble, too, but Felix only sighs his impatience. “Make yourself useful and give the beast something to brace against.”

_ Oh, fuck. _ Sylvain feels like he’s moving through syrup as he steps in closer and places his palms flat on Dimitri’s bare shoulders. Dimitri’s skin is hot, almost burning in the cool air of the room. Sylvain doesn’t know where to look — Dimitri’s face is out of the question, his expression making something clench in Sylvain’s chest every time he glances at it.

Felix, too, is hard to look at, so intent and whip-sharp and calculating and _ nothing _like the man that graces Sylvain’s bed sometimes and gives up all his control, lets Sylvain take him apart and see him at his most vulnerable. But… but it’s not that he’s closed up, no, this Felix is raw in a way that makes Sylvain’s gut roil in a knot of emotions too tangled up to name.

Sylvain settles for looking at Dimitri’s neck instead, the tendon that stretches and the angry red skin that peeks out from under the edge of the collar. That’s safe enough — Sylvain knows skin, knows a pretty flush and how it marks and bruises.

Of course, that all goes to hell when Felix lands the first blow and Dimitri sags into him with a punched-out noise, cheek brushing against Sylvain’s jaw. He’s _ heavy _ and Sylvain has to adjust his footing to keep him upright for the next blow, and the next, as Dimitri’s noises grow thinner and more guttural.

Just watching was one thing, but this is almost _ too _ intimate. He can feel the way Dimitri shakes as he fights his own body for control. Sylvain makes the mistake of looking up at Felix as he draws his arm back for a particularly vicious hit — the set of his mouth and the taut lines of his body as he moves make Sylvain flinch as if Felix had struck _ him _ with lightning.

One blow forces Dimitri’s knees to bend too far, unable to support his unbalanced weight, and Sylvain instinctively ducks down to catch him in a mockery of an embrace. His arms tighten around Dimitri’s waist, their chests pressed together, Dimitri’s face tucked into Sylvain’s shoulder. He expects Felix to stop, to force them apart — _ fuck, it’s too much, too close, Dimitri’s breath is so warm on his neck — _ but he just keeps _ going_, laying into Dimitri like he won’t be satisfied until there’s blood on the royal carpets.

“Isn’t that enough, Fe?” Sylvain grits out when Dimitri lets loose a ragged cry so pitiful and hurt that it triggers all of Sylvain’s protective instincts, made sharp from spending years on a battlefield with the prince.

Felix looks startled, almost like he didn’t realize what he was doing, before his expression hardens again. He steps forward to speak directly into Dimitri’s ear, body brushing up against Sylvain by necessity.

“I don’t know, beast. Have you had enough?” Felix’s hand rests, both possessive and threatening, on Dimitri’s hip.

“Yes, I’m sorry, I’m _ sorry, please,” _ Dimitri whispers, face still pressed into Sylvain’s shirt. Felix huffs, stepping back to undo the leash that binds Dimitri’s forearms, letting them drop to his sides. Sylvain can feel the way Dimitri’s strained shoulder muscles quake with relief and he reaches up to rub at them, wants desperately to somehow take care of his King.

It only lasts a second before Felix yanks at the now-free end of the leash, forcing Dimitri to stumble back and away from Sylvain. Disoriented and off-balance, he falls easily into Felix’s arms and then to his knees when Felix pushes him down. Sylvain stands watching, frozen in place, suddenly bereft of the warmth of Dimitri’s body. Felix bends to whisper something he can’t quite hear in Dimitri’s ear. Dimitri nods — minutely, but it seems to be enough.

“You wanna use him, Sylvain?”

The implication is clear, Dimitri’s lips shiny and slack, Felix’s hand twisted in his hair. Sylvain swallows hard, mind racing. _ He can’t do this, he can’t. _

“He—” Desperate, Sylvain runs a hand through his own hair, grasps at familiar ground. “I mean, he took that so well, you should really let me reward him, right?” It’s the kind of talk that usually makes people melt, makes _ Felix _ melt in particular.

Felix barks a cold laugh, shifting his grip. “Your sweet talk is wasted on a beast like him.” His eyes travel down Sylvain. “Come here.”

Sylvain steps forward, apprehensive. This should be easy, he’s had a hundred people suck his cock, this should be _ easy_, but the look in Felix’s eyes, the slump of Dimitri’s shoulders —

“I’ve told you before,” Felix continues, taking Sylvain’s hand — the first time they’ve really touched all night, and isn’t _ that _ strange — and putting it in Dimitri’s hair, “you have to handle him right.”

Dimitri lets out a low, pitiful sound at that. Sylvain meets his eye, the blue consumed by a dark haze. _ He can’t. _

“Put your boot on his cock,” Felix murmurs, and _ fuck, _ when did he move behind Sylvain, when did he get so _ close? _ “That’s all he really deserves.” _ Fuck, fuck, fuck. _

“I —” Sylvain swallows. What could he possibly say? He won’t insult Felix with the implication that Dimitri doesn’t want this, he _ very clearly _ does, but still Sylvain’s gut roils against the thought of putting the sole of his boot against the King, of being so cruel to his _ friend_.

Dimitri nudges his head forward even though it tugs at his hair, pressing his mouth to Sylvain’s clothed hip. _ He can’t. _

“No, stop, I’m — I don’t know what your code word is, but stop,” Sylvain gasps out, dropping his hold and stepping back so fast that Dimitri pitches forward slightly and has to catch himself on his hands.

Felix takes his place immediately, hand on Dimitri’s shoulder to ground him, eyebrows drawn together in a twisted knot.

_ “What_, Sylvain?”

“Is this _ really _what he needs?” Sylvain exclaims, fighting the urge to pace or look away or run his hands through his already-messy hair. The sick feeling in his stomach fights tooth-and-nail with the lingering arousal still simmering like banked coals. “Or… Goddess, Felix, this can’t be good for you.”

“Don’t pretend to know what’s good for me,” Felix snarls. Dimitri lets out a tiny sound when Felix’s nails dig into his shoulder. “Of course this is what he needs, I know better than anyone what he —”

Sylvain laughs, finally breaking to the need to sink his fingers into his hair because if he doesn’t he might actually scream.

“Can he say it for himself? Because I’m getting a little tired of hearing it from you.”

Felix looks for a second like he’s actually going to punch Sylvain, absolute incandescent rage flaring in his eyes, but Dimitri’s voice stops him.

“Sylvain, I — he —” Dimitri’s clearly struggling to find words, which makes sense given the state he’s in, physically and in his head. “I want this. I do. Felix he… he knows.” Sylvain can’t stop staring at his lips, chapped from the cold and bitten raw. It’s genuine, of course, Dimitri wouldn’t lie about this. He wants whatever Felix is willing to give, his grace or his malice, and damn if that isn’t a familiar fucking feeling.

Sylvain pinches the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb, slumps back into his chair. “I guess I just… haven’t we all been cruel enough to each other?”

He half expects Felix to laugh at him and his soft-hearted declaration, but no such sound comes.

“Sometimes,” Felix says slowly, as if feeling out each and every word, “the cruelty we bring with us needs some cruelty to drive it back out.”

Sylvain stares at him. “The fuck does that even _ mean, _Fe.”

Felix just stares back, hand in Dimitri’s hair, until Sylvain breaks eye contact. He can’t help but laugh into his hands, rubbing at his closed eyelids.

“It’s alright if you want to leave.” Sylvain startles at Dimitri’s voice, rough and quiet but lucid enough. “We understand.”

Sylvain’s surprised to find that he doesn’t want to leave, not really. He wants… well, he wants Felix, he _ always _ wants Felix, maybe more than he should. Beyond that, he finds that he wants this, the King and his Hand, the spark and thunder and desperate intensity of what they do. He wants…

“I want to stay,” he blurts, on the edge of his seat, “I just can’t… Felix, I can’t do what you do to him.”

To Sylvain’s shock, Felix’s face softens minutely. “Cruelty never suited you anyways,” he says, and Sylvain can see through the dismissiveness for the half-compliment it is, which he accepts fondly.

Dimitri lets out a soft grunt when Felix’s hand tightens again in his hair, pulling back to expose his throat. More than anything, the familiarity of the gesture makes Sylvain’s mouth go dry. At Felix’s questioning look, he nods slowly.

“Go ahead, beast,” Felix says, voice sinking back into his old cadence, but its edge isn’t quite as keen. “You can suck him off.”

Barely a moment passes before Dimitri’s shuffling forward on his knees, reaching for the laces of Sylvain’s pants, expression intent and strangely serene. Sylvain sits back in the chair to give him room, quickly hardening again at the way Dimitri nuzzles into his hip, hands fumbling. Like a beast, perhaps, but not vicious — simply in need of affection. Sylvain runs fingers through his hair, encouraging, sweet. He wonders if Felix will stop him, decides he doesn’t care.

The _ good boy _ slips out of his mouth without his permission when Dimitri finally gets his lips around Sylvain’s cock, and it makes the King shudder with his whole body, hands clenching so hard on Sylvain’s thighs that he thinks he might have faint bruises tomorrow. It’s hard to tear his eyes away from Dimitri’s mouth, slick and stretched and flushed red, but he manages to look up and meet Felix’s gaze.

“Kiss me?” Sylvain gasps, and it comes out a plea. Felix’s cheeks are dusted pink — the corner of his mouth lifts. He steps forward, sliding his own fingers into Dimitri’s hair overtop of Sylvain’s broader hand, and bends to take Sylvain’s jaw in his grip.

It never gets any less.... any _ less, _kissing Felix. Now especially, surrounded by sensation and caught off-balance by the firm, insistent way Felix directs the kiss, Sylvain’s adrift and grasping for anything to ground him. It’s the sharpness of Felix’s teeth in his bottom lip, the way Dimitri ducks his head and takes him for a euphoric moment into his throat, the wood of the chair digging into his back.

He’s not going to last long like this. He’d be embarrassed by his lack of control if the situation weren’t so Goddess-damned overwhelming. Felix pulls back with a last nip to his mouth, replacing his lips with his thumb, pushing inside to press down on Sylvain’s tongue. Helpless to do anything but follow his instincts, Sylvain sucks. Felix’s eyes go wide then narrow, the curl at the corners of his mouth deepening.

“I should have known,” Felix says, sliding his thumb in and out, mirroring the rhythm of Dimitri’s mouth around his cock, “all this time, you just wanted some rough treatment, too. Wanted me to fuck your mouth like I fuck his.”

And _ shit_, if that doesn’t twist up Sylvain’s insides and wring him out until he feels like a bare, exposed nerve. He manages to moan encouragingly around Felix’s thumb, bucking up into the yielding heat of Dimitri’s mouth, closer, so, _ fuck— _

Dimitri swallows most of his spend, coughs and sputters around the rest, his cheek streaked with tears. The combination of endorphins and disbelief makes Sylvain laugh as he wipes at them with a shaky hand.

_ “Saints_, Dimitri, where were you hiding that _ mouth?” _he breathes, and even that small praise makes the King whine and shift on his knees.

“It’s been mine,” Felix says, hand slipping back into Dimitri’s hair. “Well, almost always.”

Sylvain’s eyebrows shoot up, though he can hazard a guess who else Dimitri’s been sleeping with, given the rumors that swirl about how very close the King and the Royal Ambassador to Duscur seem to be. Dimitri practically _ blushes _ at that, looking down at the floor, which only makes Sylvain laugh anew.

“Hey, I’ll keep your secret,” he promises, stroking his thumb over Dimitri’s cheek. “Cross my heart.”

Dimitri hums, pushing into the touch. Quiet permeates for a long moment.

“Dima,” Felix says finally, low and magnetic. “My turn.”

He takes Felix’s cock down his throat as eagerly as he did Sylvain’s, though Felix stays standing, hand firm on the back of Dimitri’s neck. The picture they make — Dimitri’s hands balled into fists in his lap, the long stretch of Felix’s spine, wisps of dark hair come loose from his bun sticking to the back of his neck — is enough to make Sylvain throb with desire despite being spent.

Felix is never loud when he comes, even when Sylvain’s taken him completely out of his head. It’s like he loses his voice in his breath, subsumed in the sheer feeling of it. He tugs viciously hard on Dimitri’s hair with both hands, pressing forward without reprieve for as long as it takes him to be satisfied, without regard for Dimitri’s low noises of distress.

Dimitri’s gasping when Felix releases him, his voice completely wrecked and eye red-rimmed with tears from taking the both of them in a row. Sylvain’s gut twists pleasantly at the sight — he finds himself raising his hand to his own lips, imagining how they’d split and swell with similar treatment.

Felix bends to kiss Dimitri, uncaring about the taste of come lingering on his tongue. Sylvain’s always liked that about Felix — he’s never been fussy about mess even if he doesn’t get off on it the way Sylvain does sometimes. Dimitri’s fists still clench tightly in his lap, unmoving.

“Good boy,” Felix murmurs as he pulls away, still close enough that their lips brush. Sylvain feels as if he can barely breathe for fear of disturbing them. As he watches, rapt, Felix nudges Dimitri’s knees further apart with his foot so he can press forward, just like the beginning. Dimitri gives a barely-audible noise, hips hitching.

“You want to get off?” Felix asks. A nod in return, though Dimitri’s eye is fixed on Felix’s boot. Felix makes a considering hum. “You want Sylvain to get you off?” Dimitri pauses, shudders. Nods again. Felix snorts, taking Dimitri’s chin in hand and tilting his face up. “He’ll be good at it — I’m sure he’s eaten plenty of cunt.”

Felix says it like it’s a sure fact, dismissive in a way that makes Sylvain burn hot and strange. He’s not even looking at Sylvain when he says, “Get on the bed so he can sit on your face.”

Sylvain scrambles onto the veritable plateau of a bed, barely registering that the duvet is maybe the softest thing he’s ever touched. He has about two seconds to feel guilty about not removing his boots before Felix guides Dimitri up and over him, thighs like tree-trunks settling on either side of Sylvain’s face.

Whether or not Felix’s derision is warranted, Sylvain _ is _ good at this. Dimitri’s musky and soaking wet, his cock swollen and red between his folds. He holds himself like he’s terrified that he’ll crush Sylvain, gripping the headboard like it’s the only thing tethering him to this earth. His legs shake — Sylvain runs his hands along the fronts of his thighs, up the backs of them. He jolts at the noise Dimitri makes, having forgotten that there are _ welts _ there. It’s a good noise, he thinks, based on the way Dimitri bears down on him.

“Look at the two of you,” Felix says, “absolutely shameless.” His voice is distant through the rushing in Sylvain’s ears, its lilting caught between mockery and fondness in the way only Felix seems to manage. Sylvain groans, takes Dimitri’s cock into his mouth and sucks in a chain reaction that makes Dimitri shudder and twist his hips. Felix laughs.

“Come on, beast, give it up for us,” he continues, and Sylvain can’t see what Felix is doing, too focused on the way Dimitri’s cock pulses on his tongue, but whatever it is makes the King practically _ howl_. If the headboard weren’t solid wrought iron it might have snapped under his hands as he shudders and clenches and comes under Sylvain’s tongue. It’s a healthy ego boost, to elicit so strong a reaction.

Dimitri collapses next to Sylvain on the bed, still with a fine tremble in his limbs and eye squeezed shut. Felix is propped up on his side next to him, the fingers of his free hand suspiciously shiny. He wipes them unceremoniously on his thigh.

Sylvain throws an arm over his eyes, unable to contain a breathless, disbelieving sort-of-laugh.

“All the fucking Saints,” he manages, wiping the worst of the mess onto his sleeve before turning onto his side to look at the other two. “This is _ not _ how I thought my night was gonna go.”

Dimitri chuckles weakly, grasping for whatever limbs are in reach — in this case, he lands on Felix’s waist and Sylvain’s arm, tugging them both in closer. Felix, surprisingly enough, doesn’t put up a fight, letting Dimitri hold him without complaint.

“I’ll bite, how did you think it was going to go?” Felix mumbles, face half-pressed into Dimitri’s shoulder.

“Actually, I have a message for you from the gatekeeper. Seemed important.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

It’s quiet for a long moment, the silence filled only with the sound of their breathing.

They’ve hit the point in every hookup that Sylvain dreads, where the person whose room it _ isn’t _ (usually him) has to figure out when it’s time to politely extricate themself from the bed and be on their way without any hurt feelings. Sylvain has a mixed track record in making it out unscathed from these moments, but he’s always preferred a hit and run kind of affair. Easier, he thinks.

The _ problem_, though, is that there’s a weird squeezing feeling in his chest every time he considers getting up, every time he resolves that this — now, _ now _ — is the moment that he’ll stand and tell them how much fun this was but he’d better head back to his own bed —

“Damn it, Sylvain, I can hear you thinking from over here. It’s obnoxious,” Felix grumbles. Sylvain snorts, stretching his limbs out in all directions and making sure to bump Felix in the face in the process.

“I should head out, is all,” he says, sitting up against the headboard. “Give you two some privacy or whatever.” The words sound hollow even as they’re leaving his mouth.

“You don’t have to go,” Felix shoots back, like Sylvain is stupid for even considering leaving. It thrills down Sylvain’s spine in a stubbornly hopeful way even as it leaves a sour taste on the back of his tongue.

“Why don’t _ you _ever stay, then?” Sylvain knows it’s a terrible idea, but, in typical fashion, he just can’t stop himself. Felix stares at him with narrowed eyes.

“I don’t… that’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Doesn’t it?” Sylvain swings his legs over the side of the bed, runs his hands through his hair. There’s no way he’s going to make it presentable, but he can at least tame it enough that he doesn’t look freshly fucked.

“Sylvain.” Dimitri’s hand lands on his arm, still a little shaky, grip weaker than he’s ever felt from the King. Sylvain stills despite himself. “Can’t you two hash this out in the morning?”

“Dimitri, don’t —”

“_ Felix. _”

It’s so _ them_, so familiar that Sylvain can’t help but laugh and toe off his boots instead, embracing the warmth of the duvet and the two bodies ensconced within. He’s acutely aware that he’s going to have to deal with some unpleasantness in the morning, but Goddess knows he’s foisted a lot of problems off on Future Sylvain in the past and he’s not going to stop tonight.

“You’ve convinced me,” he mumbles, pressing his face into Dimitri’s neck. “You’ll never get rid of me now.”

Felix makes a noncommittal sound off to his left, but it’s softened by the gentle rise and fall of Dimitri’s breathing. The King is right — duking it out with Felix sounds like a problem for later. Right now, he does what he’s always done best and makes himself oddly and perfectly comfortable in an unfamiliar bed.

——

In the morning, Sylvain realizes a few things.

He takes a long look at Felix’s sleeping face, slack and vulnerable, and knows suddenly that the torch he’s been carrying for twenty-five fucking years is never going away, no matter what he tries to do about it. That he’ll take whatever Felix has to give and gladly, he’ll never say no, and isn’t that just terrifying?

He’s seen the way Felix and Dimitri work, the ways they fit together (and don’t), never imagining… well, any of it. Felix would die for him, yeah. Wouldn’t any of them, for each other?

He steels himself for an explosive argument when Felix opens his eyes, but it doesn’t come, even when he catches Sylvain staring. Instead, Felix reaches for his hand, lacing their fingers together on Dimitri’s stomach, gently rising and falling with his breath.

“I’m not going to say this again, so listen,” Felix whispers, strangely intent, and Sylvain’s own breath catches. He nods. “I… you’re not wrong. About us.”

“About…?” Sylvain’s running through the night before, grasping at Felix’s meaning. Felix rolls his eyes in exasperation.

“About cruelty, Syl.” Felix’s eyes land on Dimitri’s face and soften in a way that they never do when the King is awake. It makes Sylvain’s chest ache. “I don’t know what I’m doing, maybe what I’m doing to him is just —”

“Hey, _ hey,” _ Sylvain whispers back, squeezing Felix’s fingers — he knows panic when he sees it. “Felix, look at me.” He tries to give a reassuring smile that might come out as more of a grimace. “Listen, if anyone knows about having fucked up sex it’s me. You just need to _ talk _ to him.”

“Feels pretty rich, getting relationship advice from you,” Felix mumbles, but the corner of his mouth lifts minutely, as if fighting a losing battle against the rest of his face.

“You wound me!” Sylvain mock-sighs, bringing Felix’s knuckles to his lips just to see him jerk them away with a snort.

Dimitri makes a half-asleep sound and curls into Felix. It’s, frankly, far too adorable for a man who could easily crush Sylvain’s skull with his bare hands. Felix levels him a look that communicates in no uncertain terms that if he comments on it, he’ll pay dearly.

“So,” Sylvain whispers instead, drawing out the sound, “about last night…”

“What.”

“I’m just saying, if you wanted to switch things up a bit…”

Felix stares at him, the beginnings of a flush on his cheeks. _ Cute. _

“You want me to —”

“Maybe not, y’know, everything,” Sylvain continues, ignoring the way Felix’s eyebrows crawl up and up in disbelief. “The collar and leash is a bit much, and I have to ride a horse regularly so the welts would be —”

“Shut _ up_,” Felix snaps, face really red now as he reaches over to flick Sylvain on the forehead. Sylvain cackles at his expression, making a half-hearted attempt to shield his face from Felix’s attack.

“Would you both settle down?” Dimitri grumbles, interrupting their spat with a voice rough from sleep and last night’s activities.

“Sorry, Your Majesty,” Sylvain replies cheerfully, oddly elated as he presses a sloppy kiss to Dimitri’s forehead. Felix mumbles something unkind-sounding but it’s lost as he pulls Dimitri in closer. It’s tender and strange, and Sylvain still feels a little bit like he’s caught sight of a moment he’s never meant to see, but no, they asked to stay. They _ wanted _him here.

He’s really, truly fucked, and he just might be okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> "If you want a lover  
I'll do anything you ask me to  
And if you want another kind of love  
I'll wear a mask for you  
If you want a partner  
Take my hand  
Or if you want to strike me down in anger  
Here I stand  
I'm your man"


End file.
